Page 94: the Private Eye Podcast.
Hey everybody, and when I say, hey, hey festival everybody.
Welcome to a live episode of page 94, recorded here at hey.
So without further ado, let's get into it.
first question
all
of you.
we have, a
once loved, now hated labour.
Prime Minister came to office in a
landslide,
is now completely loathed his legacy and ruins.
Is there any way back for Tony
Blair?
I'm gonna,
I'm gonna
go first
the lonely Tony Defender on panel.
I, so
I grew up in the,
I was
teenager in
the late nineties, So I lived through
the, new dawn has broken,
has it not, I
think that
new labour record is really good, but the thing that we're
talking about tonight is the fact that,
Tony
s decided
make
one of it.
It was
described
as a rare intervention.
I
was like, I don't think, I don't think it
eases it
really.
No.
But, into
the labour leadership
where
he said a variety of things.
The thing I think
he said that
true
is that
Ki came
into that
labour leadership,
essentially painting himself
as continuity Corbin.
He
then pivoted
very hard afterwards to say,
actually, I'm gonna put the left back in the sealed tomb of Mendelssohn.
Wipe out badly.
Yeah.
and then now is
of just,
if
if anyone
can escape a sealed tomb
Peter mad Peter Max
rise.
but then essentially without
proper programme for
government, without
a governing ideology,
you will snap back into
a sort of wishy-washy,
soft left comfort zone, that is a legitimate ideology,
but you have to make a case
for it, not
just it be the kind of default that you come back to.
And I think
that's
problem.
The people around Stama
they were very clever,
that they
said,
we're not getting involved
these
labour
We're Benit
or Blairite or Wilson I or Callaghan I, or
whatever it might
castle
Light.
But
we are shy.
That's the
only I that we are,
but, as it's turned out, that's
problem, is that no
one
knows what
they
think.
Couldn't see in his arguments
any policies
that haven't already
adopted by the
conservatives and reform.
Which is interesting.
because if
wants
say hi, vote.
Tory.
a
different view from
him.
He's free to do
Yeah.
How did you feel about his thoughts on oil and
gas?
Andy
loved him, couldn't fault him.
quite
impressive on a, 35 degree day to sign off an argument
says
More oil and gas,
that's what we need.
That's the secure
future
we need.
No, it's,
his
are consistent.
He believes that we
need,
more oil and gas.
He believes we need to rip up
clean
power 2030 commitment.
proposing the
same
things
would do if
you
were a climate
denier and, which in fact, reforming the conservatives
are pitching at the moment.
there is a reason that
China are installing hundreds of gigawatts.
Basically.
One gigawatt is
a
large nuclear power station.
China's installing hundreds
gigawatts
of
Soler power every year.
They are not doing that.
'cause
had inspiring
talk from Greta Thunberg.
they're doing that for very hard-nosed reasons of their own energy security.
they're
not
on
a mad choke point
in the Middle East that can apparently be
closed at
any time.
And they're doing it for reasons
of cost.
China's
electrified more of its economy than we have
by about 35
25%.
China
has
overtaken us
the race to get things
clean and efficient.
That's, Do you know,
I can tell that I've spent too much time sitting in a room with
because as
I was reading
I thought,
it's fascinating
me that he's very
excited
ai.
Yeah.
Now,
the Tony Blair Global Institute has lots of links with,
with AI companies, and I think there is a genuine, sincere thing
there,
is
he just loves the future.
It's shiny and new and exciting.
I thought
there's a really big contrast with why is he not excited
about clean energy, incredible
strides of technology advance in the last decade that past, But that one
apparently is not, exciting to him.
'cause none
of, the
he meets at
international conferences
are going on about that.
What they are saying is AI's fantastic.
And
because he's an enthusiast, he has no
idea what AI is.
is
I
did, nor do I, but,
I know,
On
the whole, it isn't good
to encourage the
end
humanity
yourself personally.
I feel that
isn't a good policy.
And also telling people what we're gonna do
is we're
take away all your jobs,
particularly, your jobs,
the
audience,
in
return,
going to rip up
your environment
fill
it full of data centres.
How does
that
grab you?
that
if
you just like bleak future apocalypses,
then Tony's your
man
also.
I just
can't,
I'm just gonna get
it
my system.
Yeah,
go
on.
Let
it out.
Great.
Just
vent.
As soon as
you see the words, the Tony Blair Institute
for Global Change.
Yeah.
For
furthering the knowledge of
Tony Blair,
you
just
start thinking,
what's this and what
are his two main points?
Get
closer to Trump.
Even reform
want to get closer
to Trump.
Right.
wing is
Blair now
But
as you say, Helen, the point you are a fan of is that he's
identified that you need to have a
and
it, even if that means annoying people.
And that that seem to be
something
that's
people feel is lacking.
Whether or not it is people really have
identified
the lack
of a message.
We've
had
so many
sort of missions
and, what were the
the
there were the pledges, there were the
milestones.
I
believe
there were, there was
sadly
revival,
ed, Stone.
ed Stone.
yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's the thing.
I think it's quite hard to work out why Stan's
approval ratings
are
so low and he's so hated.
But I think it's the sense that there's,
it's that he's vapour, that there's nothing
there.
And I think
that's
the kind of, that is the point.
I
take your
point in
saying this stuff, but on the domestic analysis,
and I was Tony Blas only too
keen to remind
himself.
He did.
He's the only labour leader ever to run three general election
victories.
Like he does know something about making and winning a political argument.
And one of the
things that
Phillips
said in
her resignation letter
we took,
spoke, talked about in the last pod, was we don't wanna have an
argument, therefore, we don't go out and make an argument.
We're
afraid to make enemies.
And
actually, Adam,
it turns out
they're listening to
you because Ki Star's,
all the
briefing this
was
about banning social media
for under
sixteens and
actually making
villains outta the tech bosses.
Yeah.
The other thing that she said, wasn't it, was that if there was a crisis, she would
take advantage of it.
And it's
a
example
of that.
But
she
suddenly said, why
not this?
And he's jumped in and
gone.
That's his big thing,
isn't it?
But it does
feel, it just
feels like there's an absolute
sense drift
at the
top at the moment, doesn't it?
And bizarrely, they seem to think that the answer
to that is to spend six weeks having a bi-election
and then a labour
election
during
nothing get done
either.
So on we go.
But
there are, ideas
are
being discussed, which is at least, so you, whether you like the ideas or not,
that
it is forcing a
lot of the party to
have a chat with
itself about
whatever it might be, about defence, about health, about
Brexit,
what's a, what
a huge failure of their time in
opposition there, because I'm a massive nerd.
I read Philip Gould's the Unfinished Revolution.
So he was the
pollster who was
intimately involved with new labour.
And
what they did was they spent the mid nineties going away and having
all those arguments internally doing them.
That was what we were told Star was
doing.
That
what Sue
Grey was supposed
to be bringing in her like roadmap for,
Armageddon, the opposite Utopia.
And then they
got in
they were
like,
oh, it's, oh,
we're in charge.
Oh no.
Have you seen these finances?
These are terrible.
I wish someone would've said something.
And yes, so I
agree with you.
It's
good for them to have that argument.
A
better time to have that
would've been in, say, May, 2024 before
they had
a crack at running the
But
what they were doing then was the definition they defined themselves were
just saying,
I'm
not
Corbin.
I'm very definitely not Corbin, and can we just emphasise that I'm really not Corbin?
And then it never got further than the party
stuff did there
didn't
ever seem to
be a kind of like
a big idea.
And
yeah,
the Barack Obama
Hopey Changey stuff as referred to
just seems completely absent.
But,
So
Tony in, in the Blair
Institute for further Blair Ology,
he
said, why is the Labour Party,
you by
the
idea of
finding a
charismatic,
personality, it
should be
about policy.
And this is
Tony
Blair
whose
main attraction was a
charismatic personality.
He seems to have forgotten Gordon Brown.
No, I think
he thinks about Gordon
Brown a lot.
Oh,
do
you think so?
Which is
kind not as much as
Gordon Brown thinks about him.
Yes.
Yeah.
we should be dishing out some equal opportunity kickings
well.
Yes.
let's
turn
right.
what
Sironi?
Okay,
let's stay Exactly.
Okay.
Let's take exactly
where Sironi is.
because
at the time of recording,
of you
here will have seen, Nigel Farage,
a leader of
Reform UK
has, 5 million excuses for why he took
a
massive donation from a Thai
based crypto billionaire.
Yep.
the
parties
reform candidate in the by-election has,
there have
some
reputationally challenging,
things that
have emerged about him.
it's
what you mean
the,
social media
posts?
Yes.
But
in this
election,
the, really weird thing is that
reform are being out flanked on the right.
Yeah.
So Rupert
Lowe's outfit Restore,
this is gonna
be a
really interesting
test So
people who run focus
groups say that restorers being brought up in them.
It's,
always a challenge
in the first pass,
post is
it very difficult for new entrants,
very hostile
to new entrants.
So he's essentially got
backing, the
very vocal backing of
Elon
Musk
who was about as
popular as gonorrhoea in
country,
but
has a lot of money.
and
also he is
gone way,
I okay,
so you've already got a situation in which
reforms I,
Yusef is saying
we
would deport foreign nationals who've got social housing.
So that's,
already talking,
we're already in getting close to the Trumpy
mass
deportation zone.
Rupert
Lowe is bulldozed
straight beyond that.
He said something
he
wants to take all immigrants
put on a
mid infested island and leave the
to it.
We are now
at
fully far right rhetoric.
Yeah.
So the
interesting question
is,
for the
other
parties, it's
electorally useful
have
restore exists because it
will drain some reform
away
in the
way
that the BMP would've
done.
If you
think about where that
party
is,
but in
no way do you want to encourage the
growth of a far right party with that
kind of rhetoric.
So there will be this
awkward
dance where people will be slightly keeping their gloves on about
not wanting to
qu this party for electoral reasons when they
really should.
Because letting it grow
and fester
be
horrible,
make this country horrible to live in.
Adam,
did an even earlier and one of one of the points reflected on was just how
angry
Britain seems
days.
there is
a
widespread mass.
It's not irritation, it's further than that.
It is anger about
the feeling that nothing works,
that
big bits
of the state are not doing their job properly.
Lots of other people are
getting away with it and you are not,
I feel we've hit this point.
We,
it comes
to
the Hopi Changey stuff I was talking about.
it doesn't
feel like anyone
is voting for any sort of positive
reasons anymore.
Everyone is voting against things rather than voting for things.
And even within parties, the,
massive swing to the green, some of it's down to Zach Lansky being
very, charismatic and them coming out nowhere as effectively a
new party under his leadership.
But an awful lot of it
because a
lot of people in labour are absolutely Furious about where labour sit
on what Israel is doing Gaza.
And it's the single issues that people fixate on get extreme,
like, on
the right, that people fixate on that one thing,
they're
very, angry about.
And they, that
it just seems
to be they're voting
against them.
No one seems to me to be
any sort of positive
story about where Britain be.
They're telling us it's broken and it's
terrible
and it's awful.
And that's
as journalists.
It's not
Wrong politic.
But to go back
to sub blessed Toone, there was another bit where he about
the all lure of people at having him a lie in
Argentina, Mr.
Chainsaw who communes with his dead dogs.
Okay.
Through seances, as do we all
sometimes.
But,
and, Georgie
Maloney of and Trump, where he said the normal institutional
politicians, they ap
approach a wall the road and they then have
a kind of committee meeting to
see how we could round it.
And then these other, these populist right politicians
threaten
bulldoze through wall.
And that's what people are voting for.
They want something to happen
and they
feel that there are all these ways in which nothing
ever changes.
Nothing ever happens.
And I do think that does some of what you
were saying.
There was an analysis of the recent, cancel elections, which
said essentially you can break down Britain to four blocks if you are
older and financially precarious.
You're voting reform.
If you're younger and financially precarious, you're voting green.
If you're
older and financially secure,
you're
voting conservative.
And
if you're younger and financially
you're voting labour.
And
that's a huge oversimplification.
But there is an
alliance there
between people who feel that their
lives are not secure
in
way, and then they have
the,
burn it all down then what?
I've got no stake this system anyway.
that, I think is a very powerful force
in British politics right now.
But comparatively a lot,
it's like question time.
Comparatively, a
lot of those things
are driven by online
media narratives that aren't necessarily true.
Yeah.
so a
lot of anger
is generated about issues which don't
affect
hugely
and which are not quite the same issues as those presented.
So I
feel what's different
people say, what's different about the current
is that,
people are allowed to vent this anger in
very,
blatant toxic ways online.
And
then they bring it
the real world and we
haven't had that.
And
then they're suddenly shocked when someone
says, unbelievably offensive thing you wrote, it's, it was a
long time ago when you go, it
last week.
and they go, I'm a different person.
You think you're not though, are you?
and then it was banter.
I I'd have statutory, imprisonment
banter myself,
but,
how I how from banter
off on the causes
banter.
Yeah.
and, but these are just ways of saying, we've normalised a way of being angry
and Furious and about
things
that doesn't necessarily reflect happening.
And
it's part of the reason, eye satirises a lot
of the,
mainstream narratives
the writer
as well as on the thing is because
they have gone into complete lunacy.
and the Britain is broken narrative
again,
it,
sells well.
Nothing works.
Everything's
useless.
That just
isn't true.
and in a lot of spheres, this isn't
plos,
that's
not really
my thing.
but
in a
lot of spheres, all
is happening is you are hearing the noise and you
are not hearing anything else.
And that I think, becomes
problem.
It's a lot of it is down to what your
algorithm serves you
it serves you the stuff that
is making you angry,
but it serves you more
of the stuff that you liked anyway.
And There's no sort of
room
for any sort of counter narrative to come at that.
I the number of people,
Rupert
Low
is among
them who are absolutely convinced of the mainstream media
who are in
were
ignoring the child grooming scandals
for
decades until Elon Musk over it
last
year.
was
2012 that we gave the Paul Foot award investigative journalism
to Andrew Norfolk for the
work he'd done?
the reason people know about this stuff
is because the police investigations went on at the time and
the journalists who wrote about
yeah.
Just because
it's
taken that
long to
notice, it doesn't
mean
it wasn't happening.
And he
wrote in an obscure journal called The
Times
He was
on the front page, Whoa.
Oh, mainstream media,
lame stream media, I call them.
I
think
it's,
I
do think it's hard if you don't
consume a
lot of this content just
to realise how
incredibly
heightened emotionally it
is.
So if you are on, if you're watching
short form video,
you were just getting stuff
pumped at you.
There is
an established problem on
x formerly Twitter of creators sitting in other countries.
You like whether basically people who are sitting in alone at their computer
somewhere like Malaysia creating clips
about
kind of Islamic takeover
of London.
Yes.
And you have this very odd situation, I spend
a lot
time writing America, where
you have Americans who
live in with unbelievably high
homicide
rates, going, is everything okay in London?
And you're like,
yeah,
Some
bits of it are quite
nice actually,
but they're all, they,
all they get
fed is
basically
SDI Khan's, Sharia
wasteland
over
and over again.
And
they're sitting
in, Chicago and then they're, they're worrying about our safety.
And these,
you these are incredibly heightened.
There's
another thing, Jim war of London Centric
bust opener ring of this, a guy going into houses, multiple
occupation
and filming videos saying, these people are all Muslims.
None of them speak They have a halal
only house,
it's all social housing.
And there is fundamentally no sanction
on that.
The social media companies aren't investigating.
interested in
mod moderating it,
that investigation, it wasn't
true.
the,
people living in those houses
were, not,
not,
only, Al but it turned out the guy responsible was estate agent who
was letting out those houses wasn't,
yeah.
So if
that had been
case,
that would've been down to him.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
easy to find the
lp, but that's the kind of,
that's
the kind of thing.
And as, said, if you get, if you watch one of those and you
like it it made you Furious,
guess what's coming along in a minute is 400 videos.
It's
very
interesting because
I, literally only
get heat
stuff,
so I have no idea what this, I just,
I live in a fool's paradise.
I really, check.
That's all.
Helen, you said if you're feeling precarious
comfortable,
and if
you're older or younger now, you didn't mention what happens if you're feeling
precarious
comfortable and
you live in Wales or Scotland.
we've got
five cery and
we've got the smp
I
I also
didn't
mention
the Lib
Dems, because I
where
they
fit into that matrix.
So there are
many
people who are excluded
the Matrix.
Absolutely.
But I think we shouldn't,
given, the day we're
recording this song, we shouldn't miss
out the SNP and I think.
And
we know ply have done marvellously and congratulations to
them.
But,
for each
of you, what are
your favourite items
Peter Merrill's?
I'm,
I
nearly said expenses, but it's not, an expense if you've embezzled
But do,
you
have
any top picks?
This is now shopping
channel section of
the evening.
the headline one
that everybody's focused on
is
the
pound
Lile salt
and pepper shakers.
Because I just
think almost no
one
else realised that.
can you a
salt
pepper
shaker
to make it
like,
there
was, a pencil
sharpener
that was worth
about graph.
How
do you make
a pencil sharper
is worth that much
outta Diamond Outta Diamond.
Outta Diamond.
done?
My favourite one was
that he bought and he
embezzled a
copy of
his wive's book of speeches.
I,
I
I am I've absolutely got a
comp from
publisher.
Yes.
Just
that's where
I have some sympathy from.
'cause I wouldn't spend my money on Nicola Street
surgeon
speeches.
It was the coffee
machines
got me.
Did you see them?
No.
Come
If husband embezzled
copy of
your latest book, you'd
be fuming with him.
I think, to be
honest, he probably wants freebies.
I think if I made him go out and buy it,
be more fury.
Yeah.
Okay.
Fair
enough.
No, the coffee machines were amazing.
The, it's about
three, 2000 pound
coffee machines in there.
Wow.
special.
Nessun, espresso Crue, espresso
and
mugs.
A manual
espresso
maker,
a coffee Cup warmer, which
was the thing I didn't even know existed.
Oh.
But
then at the bottom of the,
that's
a hand
after all the, just
a
hand
after all the beans.
Also
two
kilogrammes of Nescafe gold blend, which were worth 81
60.
Who was
that for?
That's
just, if the builders were
that's when
journalists come round
and you have to
pretend to be
of the people.
But I
realised who years at that point.
He's the
coffee
bo.
There's one in every office
who has
a, cold compress thing that
want tell you about how
best coffee it
will
your life.
That's Peter Mull.
I,
need, I was other people's money.
mean
the timing is what I
like The,
they managed to,
conclude this investigation after the election.
in
which the SNP
very well.
And thank you
to all the,
Scotts Nat supporters who've
me abuse over the years,
for ever questioning
the, probity of the, leadership
the
SNP.
it
is extraordinary that we're talking
about 400,000 pounds.
the excuse given and a
number of people are
questioning,
whether Nicholas Sturgeon's account of this is entirely
she's
been found
innocent.
Just
making that very clear.
but
you said they
had separate
accounts.
They
were both earning
salaries.
both
earning about a hundred
grand
each.
So after tax, that's about a hundred grand.
If your joint household
goes
from 100
grand to 500 grand,
you might notice now
if you are
the
Scottish police, you launch an investigation, which
takes a very, long time.
and only comes
to its conclusion after it's far
too
late
affect
fortunes of the, politicians
of time.
This is pretty fishy.
Scottish politics is very small.
It involves a
lot of the
same people.
Some of them are married to each other, some
of them
aren't
anymore.
but the idea that
your first minister, leader
of the SNP, you
want to renegotiate
the financial situation between Scotland and England and
don't
know your husband's embezzled 400 grand
darling.
There's
a new camper Van
is
there.
That's
lovely, darling.
Let's
it
in the drive.
I it just
of
your mother.
Let's put it in your mother-in-law's
car.
The
93-year-old
mother who didn't drive.
Yeah.
Alright.
I'm gonna
on because
can I just say that John Sweeney may have done the first and
maybe only joke of his life.
Did
see
this Inadvertently
they said, do you think Nicola Sturgeon was really cooperating with the
police when
she just said, no comment for seven hours?
And he said,
no comment.
Lovely, lovely
secret of comedy is timing.
Very
strong.
Very
Very strong.
And
then
from John Sweeney.
Alright, look,
of, terrific
crooks,
must
turn to America.
Helen,
you,
cover
lot
of,
American affairs.
we're
now
how
long, I think seven or eight years
Trump's
second term, just
by vibes
alone.
how is
it going
and where
are we in
with where
we were
the
first time around?
If
a
year
and a
got a
and a bit in
I Yeah.
Can
you
even remember what
the end of 2017, the beginning of 2018 were like?
They now the sort of
miss of time?
Trump has just, talk about
being a massive crook.
He
has absolutely
plundered
American
state.
So he's got
his sons involved in a crypto business.
he's, doing deals
with various Middle East and Gulf
monarchies
seem to be, basically his foreign policies have been
sort an extension of his hotel
business.
and the other
is
he
just has this situation now where
he will just pardon people
if they've donated
money to him,
which just seems
fairly just
obviously
crooked, but it's
apparently due to a loophole.
Absolutely
fine.
Yeah.
so the latest thing he's done is
created a huge slush fund, or the Department of Justice created a huge slush
over a billion dollars to basically pay off people like the January
6th rioters who've been victims of miscarriages of
justice.
Now you've covered
some miscarriages of justice in
time.
I would say
who turned up hit a policeman over the head with
truncheon
while dressed as
I
Who's
sort of like
Shamans.
Yeah, shamans or whatever.
And not, wouldn't be the,
I'd probably put like the post
office people slightly higher on the list than them, So I think
that
he
has, basically checked outta the
American presidency.
What happened is he came
in,
this blueprint for government from the Heritage
Foundation project 2025.
He went
through a blizzard of
executive orders, which all American presidents
come
to rely on now.
Essentially.
It's a very cheap way of getting things
without having
to do them
Congress, and
then has just
become wildly distracted by the Iran War.
There's
talk about them doing some kind
of
incursion
Cuba, but they
just don't really have
the bandwidth
it,
but they
might do it
anyway 'cause they're bonkers.
And,
he's, meanwhile just,
I think also he is,
he,
feels very lame duck in the sense that he's already got a
gold stature of himself
and he's just got a big, he's
building a huge UFC ring
on
the south
lawn of
White
House.
You
should say what UFC is.
Yes.
Oh,
I'm sure.
Everyone in the
audience
is a huge fan of mixed martial
arts.
it's ultimate fighting championship.
So
Yeah.
It's not KFC.
No.
Although give actually
he's more
of a McDonald's guy.
Give him time.
But yeah.
So the, his way
of this is almost
beyond parody.
His
way of celebrating the 250th anniversary
the founding of America is he's
gonna have some
big, burly blokes
fight each other on his lawn.
Okay.
She's
you could go
to any
weatherspoon.
a hobby
Helen.
You take everything away from,
but
But
it
it, are we seeing America's greatest
250
years in?
We've
a
war
in the Middle East.
got, a
American
invasion on the cards.
Yeah.
are we just seeing a, an action
replay?
That's
true.
What have they, what Yeah.
What have they
missed?
I thought for a second I had this
vision
of actually the, Ultimate fighting Championship is gonna be replaying.
So one of them is
be dressed as
Abraham Lincoln,
one of them dressed as sad hue.
Yeah.
One of 'em dressed as a weapon of mass destruction.
More up for
it now.
into it.
okay, so
and
how's
that,
going
down with people?
his approval
ratings
have hit the
lowest
that they have been in either
of the, two
terms
in the NYT Sienna poll.
So it's not,
it's really not
going well.
But the interesting thing is that,
I
was
gonna I was about to say the phrase, you have
to feel sorry for
staff, and then
I realised
No,
you don't
have to.
You absolutely do not have
to
hand
it to
them.
So they, they, have midterm
elections in November and
there'll be lots and lots of seats,
in the both the house
and the Senate up for grabs.
And basically he has used
as
a revenge tour.
So anybody who's crossed him, he has
endorsed
their
primary opponent
to
the extent that the Republicans might actually
about the Senate in Texas,
which
been
very red for a
very
long time.
Because the person he's endorsed there is quite criminal,
actually technically
cleared of all charges.
thank you.
yeah,
for for the lawyer,
dunno if
we'll
have to edit
out you
quite
criminal and then just cut from
you saying the person he selected is
cleared of all
That might,
mean,
that
might,
that'll
do the job, I think and
the law's
very
happy.
Happy,
yeah.
Money was just resting in his account.
But,
but
that, but,
that, that's because the incumbent senator for
Texas
sort of 99% loyal to him, but may occasionally have said things like,
Sarai, I don't think this
war in Iran is a good idea.
Or
sir, you
did lose the election.
So he's, basically
hoofed out
a load of people
that
have his critics,
but the effect of
that is also they've
six months to
run around, slagging him off.
So that might
become quite lively in their
lame duck
session.
But also they might actually lose,
you'd expect them to lose
the house might even just
about lose the Senate,
which
means,
he, which
that the
Democrats then would control all the committees so
they can just subpoena
all his people, mi him
him stuff, try
and impeach
him, all that kind of, they
just throw sand in the gears of anything
getting done and he just can't get any legislation passed,
which would be a problem if he
wanted to
get any legislation
passed.
But I think he just wants to invade things.
He's just
he's just gonna jazz hands it.
He's
d more pappy, but
three
years early is what
what
you're
saying?
Very,
yeah, very early.
Yeah.
do you think he might invade
America
in
a moment of horrible
confusion?
He is pointing the wrong way.
Him and whose Army?
Yeah.
Ian, how
do you feel
covering, the, I the eye obviously covers a
lot more British politics.
What,
how do you
feel looking at the state of American politics?
Do you ever wish to hunt that bigger game or
is it
just
so depressing
that
you can't
bear the prospect
of it?
no.
I've got Helen
writing a,
a,
us eye column every week,
so I feel we're we are very
there.
Yeah.
At
one point readers did write
in and say,
you stop
Trump
on the
cover?
It's depressing.
but then it's just too funny.
I, I take that as
red, but
say his
approval rates are low.
low.
What,
percentage is that?
37% on the,
can
you
you imagine a British leader having
37%
But then I suppose we
don't have the same kind
of
fandom
for our,
either, either
Tories labour, right?
There's no group
hardcore
star rights
who go to
all his
dressed
as
border
wall.
Yes.
I guess it
would print dressed as Hadrian's wall.
What would you dress as
a
key Starer speech?
A
serious question.
I'm not moving on until I've got
answer
from everyone.
actually.
Okay.
While you're
thinking
about this,
I'll say that
this is a real thing.
I went
to a Trump rally in Redding, Pennsylvania, and they have all the people who sit in
front row come
dressed
as Uncle Sam.
And then they also have a guy who calls himself Mr. Wall,
who has
had a whole bespoke
suit
that
looks like bricks.
That's
so
right.
Just saying, Ian, you love a
What you could
a,
you
could have a clear
star suit that looked like,
would
be free, obviously.
Oh,
what if it were,
Oh, what if it were, could
you go dressed
as
a tool?
Yes.
A double, act.
You did a tool and a tool
maker.
I think
would
be nice.
yeah,
yeah.
One of you guys
dressed as a hammer and one
you
of smith in an
apron.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's why I would go dressed
as,
Ian,
something to say
that
was interesting
about the good chap principle, which
Yes.
No, I
just noticed
that
American
commentators who for
years have said the British Constitution
is,
unworkable.
' cause
it
relies on what
the
snobbish called the good chap principle, which means that people will behave
well even if you don't write
down
to stop them.
Whereas the American
is black
and
white
checks
balances.
We don't
need this.
And I feel now
a slight sense
Chardon Freud,
in thinking,
had the good chat
principle.
You have
bonkers
lunatic,
constitutional,
checks
balances,
which don't work.
He
literally doesn't care anymore.
Yeah.
And
the
Supreme Court won't stop
him.
got six three majority on the Supreme
Court, which
the
arbiter.
Mike Johnson, the speaker
of
the
house won't,
him.
And he,
and also
got
this thing there where he plays
JD Vance and Marco Rubio.
So vice president
the
Secretary of State off each other is which
you
is my favourite son?
who
is
my bestest
child?
there?
None of
the sons
are, because
sons
are, because
their wedding
gonna their
He,
no.
I'm very busy this weekend.
He
said, I'm hanging out with Marco.
He
did nothing
week, the
weekend Yeah.
anyway.
Yes.
Sorry.
It's sad.
I feel
sorry
for them.
I
don't feel sorry for them.
No,
they did this
themselves.
They deserve to be unhappy.
Okay.
So it's,
so they do.
So it sounds
like the forecast is just
more of this
and nothing, no effective breaks on
the
plane.
is there any further he
go
that?
Not only
do you pardon everyone
else
who's ever given you money,
but you pardon
yourself for the future forever.
that's, a proposal
that
he's
yeah.
He said
that he, neither he nor his family can have their tax affairs ever investigated.
I'm just
and give us a tiny silver lining
which is, if he's
confined to
a
lot of domestic embezzlement,
much like
Peter Merrill
at a much
larger scale, wouldn't that be better for Britain than him doing mad foreign wars?
He's
looting America rather than
Yeah.
Bombing places.
Do they not go hand in hand?
Okay.
Yes.
I suppose it's possible
both.
Yes.
He
multitask.
There is a
morning and an afternoon in the day.
Yeah.
And then there's all night
him.
Yes.
He
sticks
with his
phone.
because no one's
on truth social
apart
from mad maga people that
not really
understood.
And the
night
before he went to China, he,
I think he posted something like
500 times.
It was cer
certainly
in the triple digits.
Mm.
he's
obviously, he's talk about actually Tony Ble have a little word with him
discover
some of the dangers
of
ai
because he now will just post
most obvious like AI slop.
Yeah.
Hites.
He see that the
meme of
him as Jesus that actually got him
trouble was
just AI slop.
It
was one he did of, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and Joe Biden swimming in
sewage in the reflecting
pool.
he's
just
is your Facebook uncle,
but then the
things,
that you think must be AI slopped
not
to be, I mean he has genuinely put
a large
gold statue of
isn't
it?
Yeah.
A
Miami do.
Yeah.
People
are kneeling
front of,
it's Trump,
so
it's,
let's
be honest, it's
not really
gold
is
Very
gold.
It's Guilt,
guilt.
Not
a word Trump
familiar
with.
Hey.
Hey
But the irony of
up, hasn't it?
Putin goes
see
Q and Trump
is
supporters say that's pathetic.
A
guy who's
losing a war,
going begging for help.
You were there the week
before.
Yeah.
A trip.
I have to say
a triple, which absolutely nothing happened.
No,
really
an
absolutely astonishing,
the
leaders of the two world superpowers and no communica, nothing.
He got nothing out of that deal.
But
he saw
really
hall,
the People's Hall
in China and he thought,
that's
bigger than my hall.
Not hall of money, which
is.
But
and
then he goes home and
he talks
about the ballroom again.
Yeah.
He
loves
He loves the
ballroom.
It's Greek,
Coro Vegas.
Sounds like
Greek
wrestling.
But I do
hope they have him interred like Lenin in the ballroom
day.
Can it be soon?
it
was fitting tribute
we should, we should go to questions shortly 'cause we are, we're running
reasonably low on time.
so I think
there
are, gonna be
paddles,
going around
the room and
once I
see a paddle,
I'll shout out
the number attached to it.
Number
one.
Hello.
Hello there.
I'm very glad you put
the cartoons double page 'cause I was losing
faith.
I, I couldn't read the serious stuff for quite a while,
so it was
only the cartoons that
me
a subscriber.
Excellent.
But
what do we do when we get our own bonkers loony in, in Parliament and
in the head of the executive in this
country?
Will you
need to go weekly?
I think we turfed her
out after 49
days.
Hey.
No, I, think
seriously,
we,
just emulate the
American media.
We roll over,
sell
out
to anybody with some money, sack the cartoonists,
and, retire.
' cause
American journalism at its finest.
Good.
There we go.
I
saw a
number four over here.
Oh.
how come my dad hasn't won
the private eye crossword
yet?
Ooh.
Okay.
Now that,
is
he
remembering to send his entry
in?
That's an important question
because a lot of our readers think that it's rigged.
Yeah.
they
think that some
of the names are not
genuine.
And they are.
And the repeated winner from the last
week,
last
three
issues,
Mrs. Phyllis,
his Glock
really,
is a genuine
person
who is very good at
crosswords.
So
I hope I've made
that
clear.
Okay.
that was wonderful.
Thank
you both for the
concision of the questions.
And Brian let's
go to number two
two here, please.
you've
been disparaging
and scathing about
politicians.
Can you
cheer us up a bit?
Tell us British politicians
you
admire
and are doing a good job,
please.
Nice.
I don't want to end anyone's career.
I can name someone I
find quite in,
there's
a,
we
haven't spoken much about the Lib Dems.
There's there's
a politician,
who's
elected,
called Mike Martin,
who's
a lot
in the
Army and now he's,
he's campaigning a lot about water.
So he's,
he's interested in
third of the
stuff.
and,
the Lib Dems are filling
a funny space in British politics in that they're not really
it
at moment,
but they're
potentially
filling that space.
And,
I think
they're
weirdly
filling a role that
the conservatives might
traditionally
when Kimmie Badnock was
trying to be, rude about the Lib Dems,
said, oh,
they're
may be good
fixing
the church
roof, but, they're not really good for
anything else.
Lots of people
really, want the church
fixed.
Yeah.
In fact,
fixing the roof is a metaphor
for
doing something valuable and doing
it in a timely
fashion.
So anyway,
and
Nooks and Corners, the column that talks about
roofs
quite a lot falling
in, or we've set
on fire,
we are quite keen on.
Yeah.
Anyway,
sorry to Mike Martin
for
coming.
Oh,
Martin, held,
I think
the place to look is the Select Committees,
actually that's you people come into politics 'cause
they're interested in a specific subject.
They might not be massively ambitious in
sense
of they've always wanted to be in
cabinet.
But
actually, if
you look at the work that they're doing, I think they, we talked about it
on the podcast
before.
Some
of the stuff that
they're doing in kind of terms
of scrutiny.
even things like,
you watch the post
office drama, you'll find that the mps were very involved with that story.
There is still a lot of quite unsung work
gets
done below
the cabinet level.
I think.
Absolutely.
I would say David Davis, who,
tour, not
natural bedfellows, he
Brexit
ear, but his record on,
libertarian
issues, particularly the
post office and now on Lucy Luby, he gets up,
makes himself unpopular.
He keeps the argument going.
There are
there.
Another,
Lord
Arbaugh,
who was mentioned
earlier in, in one of the sessions I went to Member of the House and Lords who
that story all the
way.
the post
story,
I'm absolutely
fantastic.
So yes, there
are, but I try not
mention them too often.
it
ends
lives.
terrific.
Shall we,
should
to another,
I'm seeing
there's
three,
right?
Anyway, any advance.
in advance on 25 pounds, please
this wonderful
bag of
NECA Gold?
Yes.
let's go to number three.
Thank you.
Do you think Mr. Trump will cancel the midterms
and do
you think Nicola Sturgeon will
cancel her visit to Hay
on Friday?
Oh,
because
she's running in the midterms.
I
think she's gonna set up in a massive camper Van.
Yeah.
With a
load of
coffee machines in the back.
Not
right.
And
the midterm, the midterms,
to
say briefly,
I think
he will try
and do a number of things
are below
that level.
So
already the Supreme
Court has, overturned quite a few bits
the Voting Rights Act, which is
one of the things that guaranteed minority representation all
the way through this year.
The Republicans
Democrats have
fighting
about gerrymandering, essentially to create lots more districts
themselves.
The Republicans
are currently winning
that war.
They,
are lots of state houses that have flipped to
many more kind
major like
Republican friendly districts.
So whilst I
think that the splashy headline thing of him essentially
declaring martial law in himself, supreme dictator
life,
I'm not ruling it out, but I dunno if he's necessarily got the attention span
be supreme
dictator
life.
but
I think there
are lots of fundamentally anti-democratic
happening in,
in America Yeah.
That we should be, that we should be
worried about.
Yeah.
Okay.
I just
wondered if you had any thoughts
about what
the Iranians
are doing with their Lego videos
having a go at
Trump.
unfortunately they're, really
And
I,
no, and I
don't mean that in a
moral sense.
They're verily antisemitic,
in
terms of the much up there with Kanye West, actually the te at a technical
craft level, they're excellent.
And I think it's one of the things that's really interesting is that I'm not
that
the
American establishment has quite got a grip
on the fact that actually
on
social media,
Israel is
very
unpopular.
Young
people are being
and
same
way.
We talk
about older
being,
maybe on Facebook deluge
with anti-immigrant videos.
So anybody under the age
of 25, their stream is
just
a huge amount of stuff.
And so there are people
in both the establishment wings of Republicans and Democrats who
just take that alliance Absolutely.
For granted.
And actually generationally, I
it's
really gonna,
that's really going to
over.
It's,
you are already seeing the effects
of that
in American politics.
And
those Iranian propaganda videos are absolutely part
of it.
They're incredibly, don't sing it 'cause it
is incredibly catchy.
And you will be singing it
forever and
but
they are, as I say, they preach, it's all
Epstein, it's
all, antisemitic conspiracy
money,
but it is also packaged in this
way that is very Gen Z coded.
And also,
the technology, they're displaying a sense
humour
and the
thing you want with your,
deeply
unpleasant, murderous
enemy
is not
for them to be funnier than you.
Yeah.
Always
It's the,
it's there room on the joke
writing team
the
Yeah.
IRGC.
Yeah.
Oh yes.
Okay.
We're
in absolute injury
time.
Let's have one
very
final one and
briefly, if
wouldn't mind number two.
Yeah.
What's the food like?
Are
the kitchen horses
do you
go somewhere else for
lunch now?
it was,
we've moved
due to a number
of incidents,
and
we've now, got a, much, much more, tolerant,
lunch venue
who only complain
if
some of our
guests, for reasons that I don't want to explain, get locked
the
toilet for hours together
and on.
I'll leave you
with that thought.
On that
note.
I think we're ending
as
we
started
Ally.
And
it
only remains for me
Before you go,
I
just say
a round
applause for these amazing
contributors?
How about
you?